War and the Formation of the Scottish State

How did the Scottish state develop during the early modern period, particularly the 16th and 17th centuries, and to what extent did the process of state formation conform to Tilly’s theory of European state development?

Our view of European history is conditioned by events from the recent past. It is common knowledge that German armies have invaded France three times between 1870 and 1939. However, it is surprising to discover that the long-term norm was for French armies to trample over German lands. This happened at least thirty times between 1500 and 1812! Our generation have known an unprecedented period of peace in Europe since 1945, with the exception of Soviet suppression of internal risings in its satellites and the recent conflicts in the Balkans.

Wars involving European Great powers

Century

No of wars

Ave duration

% of century

1500-1599

34

1.6

95

1600-1699

29

1.7

94

1700-1799

17

1.0

78

1800-1899

20

0.4

40

1900-1975

15

0.4

53

Charles Tilly claimed that the balance between the coercive power of territorial lords and the economic power of capital exercised by urban merchants and rentiers over the past millennium led to the relatively similar organisation of national states that became the norm in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The historical route to this norm differed depending on the relative significance of coercion and capital in each state. In Tilly’s generalisation, territorial lords commanding military manpower needed capital resources in order to make war, while urban centres accumulated capital by trade. It could be argued that Tilly lays too much emphasis on the capital-coercion interplay, thus neglecting such influences on European development as disease; long-term climate change; non-military technological innovation such as printing; or changes in religion and philosophy that altered European perception of the world and (according to Tawney) led to the development of capitalism. However, whether any of these were more or less important in the development of Modern Europe is a different discussion.

Tilly defined States as coercion-wielding organizations that exercised priority over all other organizations within substantial territories. In 1000AD he observed three basic forms of government: firstly: Petty despotisms; secondly: city-states oriented to trade and exploitation of agricultural hinterlands; and thirdly empires with central military organisations and tributary (often semi-autonomous) local rulers. [1] Concentration of coercion can be seen in empires that largely monopolized coercion and tribute-taking but decentralized administration. By contrast, highly accumulated, but un-concentrated coercion, was apparent in the fragmented sovereignty of Italy between city-states that consolidated only late in the 19th century. [2] In the European medieval and early-modern periods, a diverse system of empires, city-states, urban federations, church lands, feudal domains, bandit leagues and many other forms transformed into a patchwork of distinct states occupying well-defined, viable sovereign territories. These national states developed mainly out of military competition rather than ethnic self-determination. [3] This resulted from a unique European dynamic of capital based in a dense but uneven nexus of cities with coercion wielded by territorial princes. The Scottish state featured a society with moderate accumulation of coercion among the nobility, a relatively weak urban sector and relatively low concentration in the hands of the monarch.

Early modern Europe had many urban places with privileges and economic activity that distinguished them from rural villages. They ranged in size from a few thousand, with more than 150 in excess of 10,000, to Naples with 150,000 in 1500. [4] Cities grew and prospered due to economic and political privileges granted to them by the leaders of higher political entities. In return cities provided political and economic services to that order. Cities formed a part of a political order that encompassed feudal lords and regional institutions as well as central states. [5] The regional development of urban centres was highly uneven. Geographically favoured locations such as northern Italy [6] and Flanders [7] developed wealthy trading cities that dominated their hinterland over long periods and could wage major wars on their own account. Lesser urban centres found it harder to resist domination by territorial lords and princes. Some territorial lords financed their expansive ambitions by expropriating much of this urban accumulation in taxation, while elsewhere the city elites resisted expropriation and, instead, profited from lending their capital at interest. The ability of urban elites to resist princely expropriation was crucial in determining whether cities merely formed parts of territorial principalities or maintained independent dominance over their own hinterlands. The continued success of urban centres depended on maintenance of trade despite disruption by war, and on the retention of sufficient capital for maintenance and growth of the urban economy. Except in extremis it would not be in the interests of a prince to extract to excess or otherwise disrupt the urban economy, thus states developed economic policies to regulate and protect the interests of their urban elites as well as extract taxes. Such policies came to include the control and protection of trade; industrial regulation; currency and price controls and, despite muddled objectives, all three can be observed in the policies of James VI [8]. Subject populations, whether urban or not, would seek to evade taxation in any way possible, unless faced with the alternative of losing all to an enemy. Thus the threat of invasion or the promise of profit from successful conquest permitted rulers to extract more from their subjects.

Tilly highlighted different forms of urban growth that resulted from variations in the form of capital growth. Where accumulated capital was widespread, as in the Netherlands or Northern Italy, a network of urban centres developed with highly productive Von Neuman agricultural zones around them. [9] The elite of Scottish urban centres possessed Royal charters exempting them from lordly imposts, although burghs could still be strongly influenced by local gentry, such as Dundee with Scrimgeour or Graham. The Netherlands developed a state based on negotiation between strong urban centres with a nominal aristocratic or princely rural elite. In Scotland the nobility formed a dominant layer, often exercising considerable control over the crown during frequent Royal minorities and diverting resources into feuds with their rivals. The great majority of pre-18th century Scottish burghs, and all of the largest, were east coast ports. While not all such ports participated in foreign trade, sea and river transport were the cheapest means of moving goods. Even as late as the 19th century, coal for Dundee mills would be shipped from the Forth ports. Scotland had its Convention of Royal Burghs that, in the late 16th century, concerned itself almost exclusively with economic affairs. The chief aim of the Convention was to regulate and protect members’ ancient trading privileges. The Convention clung to late medieval economic theory, and resisted fiscal innovation. Customs were levied on exports in order to restrict the exodus of useful goods as well as raising revenue [10]. During the 16th century states, such as England and Sweden, succeeded in developing strong central governments with a degree of coherence and continuity in their economic policy. In Scotland, such an attention to economic policy had barely begun by the 1590s when Scottish policy could be characterised by incoherence and expediency [11]. After the Court moved south in 1603, the ability of the Scottish state to pursue an independent economic agenda would be severely limited. [12]

Scotland, until the Union of 1707, was amongst the oldest European monarchies. Thanks to geography it had existed within virtually unchanged mainland boundaries since 1018. The War of Independence forged disparate ethnic and social groups into a nation united by a grievance against England. From the death of Edward II, the expansionary interests and military focus of the English state lay elsewhere, thus conquest of Scotland may not have been considered worth the expense, except by Cromwell. After the ‘Rough Wooing’ when parts of Southern Scotland had been ravaged or occupied by English armies, the Regency of Mary of Guise brought in a French army. However, the Reformation though idiosyncratically Scottish, put Scotland more firmly into the English sphere of influence. The interests of the Scots Protestant lords and the possibility of Stewart succession to the English throne meant that Scotland was less likely to ally with Catholic powers hostile to England. Despite the threat of a Scottish counter-reformation led by Huntly whose failure may have been partly due to the antagonism between France and Spain [13]. In this sense it is true that war or the threat of war shaped the Scottish state.

The popular view of Scottish history is of a violent and martial society. Tilly and other students of this subject in Europe make it apparent how relatively peaceful Scotland has been, certainly since the ending of the wars of Independence. Many historians of Scotland could be described as ‘Statist’ in that they have viewed events largely in isolation [14] from the rest of Europe, although conceding the crucial importance of the ‘auld enemy’. Some of the 15th and 16th century Scottish military forays (and disasters) along the border resulted from the alliance with France against England, while Scottish links with the Baltic and Low Countries were vital for the east coast trading burghs. Although major wars in the European sense were rare, Scotland had its share of internal conflict with endemic private bloodfeuds (even if many were bloodless!) until the end of the 16th century. Without dismissing the impact of the manpower losses at Flodden in 1513 or the economic devastation of southern Scotland by an English army in the 1540s, a society substantially free of major European-style warfare is demonstrated by the absence of the type of urban walls built to defend against artillery siege that were so normal from the 16th to 18th centuries in the Netherlands, France and Northern Italy. Although it may be argued that the lack of the latest fortification technology was as much an indication of poverty as peace! The only major European-style urban defences were the Elizabethan defences of Berwick, built at great expense as a defence against the threat of Scots incursions. Due to endemic border violence Elizabeth’s government also planned in the 1580s an “arteficiall fortyficacion” – an earthern rampart along the line of the border [15]. Artillery fortifications, such as Blackness or Dunnottar did not protect urban settlements and most urban walls had an economic rather than military significance.

Medieval conflict utilised the armed strength and financial resources of the feudal lord or the equivalent city-based elites. Princes depended on the service of their feudal barons. A baron supplied and equipped his own retainers who gave personal allegiance to him, rather than to higher authority. Walled cities and castles could be virtually impregnable to the available coercive means. Technological innovation transformed this situation. The Ottomans deployed a massive bombard to smash the walls of Constantinople in 1453 [16]. Most of the English towns in France were battered down by 1490 [17]. James II of Scotland died when a gun exploded at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460. Charles VIII of France brought the medieval style of warfare to a close in 1494-95 when he marched through Italy to lay claim to the Kingdom of Naples. With forty improved, more easily transportable cannon, Charles reduced or accepted the surrender of the fortresses of Florence, the Papacy and Naples in a remarkably short campaign. [18] By 1505 the city of Pisa had developed a defence against the new artillery and were able to withstand a Franco-Florentine assault. In 1509 the Venetians copied the Pisan double earthen rampart and ditches to defeat Emperor Maximilian’s assault on Padua with 136 artillery pieces. [19] However, the expense of both offensive and defensive technology continued to rise. The small city-state of Pisa soon lost its independence to Florence, having spent so much on its new technology defences, it could not afford soldiers to man them. The development of effective man-portable firearms further revolutionised warfare. Armoured knights became obsolete. Battles were decided by massed and disciplined ranks of infantry rather than expensive cavalry. Ever-increasing demands for soldiers favoured the larger territorial states, especially against city-states that had traditionally employed mercenaries. While devastating and ruinous in the actual zone of conflict warfare stimulated innovation and investment, especially in urban centres concerned with all aspects of supply and maintenance of the armies. Scotland’s role in this innovative mode of warfare, apart from the royal artillery collection, seems to have been mainly confined to supplying considerable numbers of her people as mercenaries in European armies, brokered by Lords, such as MacKay who sent 3000 men in support of Christian IV of Denmark in 1626. Scotland provides yet another exception to the norm, in the ability of a 17th century Highland and Irish army under Alasdair MacColla and Montrose to repeatedly defeat Covenanting armies officered and led by soldiers trained in European warfare. This would be repeated in the defeat of Generals Cope and Hawley by the Highland charge in 1745.

Tilly stressed the multiplicity of routes to the modern state, but particularly focused on different levels of urbanisation as being critical to state formation. Regions of early urban dominance such as Italy and the Netherlands produced very different states from those regions, such as Poland in which great landlords and agricultural estates dominated. He argued principally that state structure developed chiefly as a by-product of the ruling elite’s effort to increase the resources over which they wielded power and to do this they had to acquire the means of waging war. Secondly, inter-state relationships, especially through war strongly affected state formation. Rulers invariably faced internal and external limitations on their power. They usually settled for a combination of conquest of the weak, protection against the powerful and coexistence with the co-operative. [20] Thus relations with and protection against England, inevitably, had a major effect on the development of the Scottish state. Scotland before the 18th century, lay among the less heavily urbanised regions and, according to Tilly, this should mean that her territorial lords were likely to have a greater influence over state development that the urban sector. Perhaps this is exemplified by the fate of the favourites of James III, including renaissance architects and musicians who were murdered at Lauder Brig in 1482 by the reactionary and jealous nobility. The same nobility ultimately overthrew the King at Sauchie, replacing him by the teenage James IV in order to maintain their privileges and influence. All of the Stewart kings had such problems with their nobility, usually resolved bloodily, such as James I with the Albanies and James II with the Black Douglas – whose castles were breached by ‘the gret gun the quhilk a Frenchman shot richt wele” [21]. In the more fluid European context provincial nobles often broke completely away from their Princes, becoming independent or allying with another Prince. Scotland never disintegrated to that extent. Powerful men such as Morton, Moray and Lethington manipulated James VI as a minor. He had a severe scare with the Gowrie conspiracy in 1600 [22] and yet James appeared by 1598 to have succeeded in turning factious, feuding nobility into tractable courtiers more prepared to resort to the courts of law than battlefield [23]. Unlike the distinct Noblesse de Robe in France, most Scottish administrative and legal functions were awarded to members of the traditional nobility, albeit augmented with new Lords of Erection. [24] The difference was in that while titles were heritable, many functions, with the exception of the Sheriffs were not [25]. James attempted the creation of a European absolutist, centralized state without the imperative of war. While James may have been astute enough to negotiate and compromise when his absolutist ambitions could not prevail, Charles I, in a United Kingdom context proved unable to do so.

Tilly suggests that rulers obtained the means of coercion in different ways at different periods in history. Up to the early-modern period tribes, feudal levies, urban militias, and similar customary forces played the major part in warfare, and monarchs generally extracted what capital they needed as tribute or rent from lands and populations that lay under their immediate control. This patrimonialism persisted up to the 15th century in much of Europe. There followed brokerage, roughly 1400 to 1700, when mercenary forces recruited by contractors predominated in military activity and rulers relied heavily on formally independent capitalists for loans, for management of revenue-producing enterprises, and collec­tion of taxes. An amalgam of feudal and kin-based rule continued in much of the Highlands until the 18th century, despite the efforts of the Crown, for instance the abolition of the Lordship of the Isles in 1493, since, on several occasions the Lordship had threatened an alliance with England against the Scottish state. Lords, with considerable military followings, such as the Earls of Dunbar or Douglas accepted English pensions or exile. Such lordly independence was typical of much of early modern Europe. Persistence of clanship into the eighteenth century permitted chiefs who in some respects were transforming into commercial landlords, to raise substantial armed strength from their patrimonial lands. The significance of these clannish forces was increased by the loss of the power of lowland lords to raise similar armed strength from their own lands, as had the Earl of Mar, on behalf of the Regent Albany, to defeat Donald of the Isles at Harlaw in 1411. According to Pedro de Ayala in 1498, the revenues of the Scottish crown were farmed out to collectors who retained as much profit as possible. The revenues included: leased crown lands; customs; profits of justice; feudal incidents; vacant benefices and rent in kind from crown estates [26]. During the reign of James VI, the Scottish state moved into a more organized fiscal brokerage, when Alexander Primrose, clerk of the taxations devised a network of collectors, maintained by percentages and fees [27]. In the context of the United Kingdom after 1707, increasing state power permitted nationalization: a period (especially 1700to 1850 across Europe) when states created mass armies and navies drawn from their own national populations, while sovereigns absorbed armed forces directly into the state’s administrative structure, and similarly took over the direct operation of the fiscal apparatus, drastically curtailing the involvement of in­dependent contractors [28].

Historians have attempted to extrapolate backwards the deliberate and conscious effort of governments from the 18th century to construct centralized states. In fact, most of the institutions now accepted as typical of modern states originated out of pragmatic necessity. For instance, when France was almost bankrupt during the 1630s, Richlieu sent out his own intendants to take direct control of taxation from the local elite and, despite the Fronde and other regional revolts, these eventually became the mainstay of central authority. [29] James V created the college of Justice in 1540 as a mechanism to lay hands on church revenues. It developed, under James VI into a mechanism for resolving disputes among the nobility without resorting to feud [30]. Much of the structure of the 17th century Scottish state evolved expediently from the chronic cash shortage of James VI. As well as extensive former Church lands that had been reclaimed by the crown in 1587 [31], the crown permanently alienated much of the remaining Crown lands, whose rental had been intended in earlier times to support state expenses. For instance in 1587, the lordship of Balquhidder was granted to Moray of Tullibardine as security for a loan of 4000 merks [32]. In 1591, the lordship was granted in free barony to Tullibardine [33], extinguishing the loan. Former church lands were feued to ‘Lords of Erection’ during the reign of James VI, bringing in capital, which would be spent as income, as well as new servants for the crown [34]. Another device was the sale of noble titles, particularly baronetcies to wealthy merchants. In response to chronic money shortages, in 1596 James appointed exchequer commissioners known as the Octavians to reform state finances and reduce expenditure, but with noble opposition to reduced patronage, they lasted only until 1597. James delegated the Convention of Royal Burghs as brokers, to collect the customs, forcing them to introduce novel taxes to meet the Royal demands. The court also resorted to further debasement of the currency from 1583. [35] Most states resorted to the expedient of debasement of coinage. While English and Scottish coinage both suffered debasement from the late 15th century the exchange rate remained around 4:1. The Elizabethan re-coinage stabilised the English currency from 1560 so that by 1603, the exchange rate had fallen to 12:1. [36] Just as the Spanish monarchy attempted to resolve its regular financial crises by technical bankruptcy [37], so too did James VI. The goldsmith, Thomas Foulis took on responsibility for Royal finance, but repayments to him were suspended in 1598 and repayments were still due in 1625 [38]. Scotland under James made extensive use of fiscal brokers, a process typical of many European states during the 16th and 17th centuries, with the exception, that in Scotland the nobility were also taxed, whereas in much of Europe they were under-taxed or wholly exempted [39]. In the late 16th century, the Netherlands financed their war against the Hapsburgs with loans paying 6%, while Hapsburg Spain with its frequent technical bankruptcies incurred rates of up to 49%. A Scottish Act of 1587 fixed the maximum interest rate at 10%. The Dundee Guildry attempted to borrow at 7% in 1603, though more typically Ayr paid an above the legal maximum 12% in 1591. [40] However, Scottish risk appeared to be nearer to the prudent Netherlands than the profligate Hapsburgs.

The re-orientation of the Scots nobility from autonomous war-making against their rivals and neighbours to courtiers under the eye of the monarch that took place in the last years of the 16th century was typical of the European pattern, although later than in the core states from North Italy to the Netherlands. However, unlike many states, Scotland developed its more integrated state structure without a major stimulus from warfare. The Scottish state was not excessively pressured to offer protection to its people against external aggression and hence this limited its ability (and need) to raise funds for war [41]. An attempt to reform the taxation system in 1600 was defeated in the Convention of Estates. [42] Scotland never had a standing army, indeed James could not afford a permanent royal guard, [43] despite a subsidy from Elizabeth between 1586 and 1602 of between two and four thousand pounds sterling annually [44]. To put this in context, the customs on exports of Scotland in 1582 were let for just over £4000 sterling. [45] By 1612 a much more efficient general import tariff had been introduced, so that import duties in Dundee alone raised £2580 [46]. States under extreme military pressure developed far more effective extractive techniques that did not reach Scotland until after 1707, although foreshadowed in the Covenanting wars and Commonwealth between 1638 and 1660.

The Scottish state may be considered anomalous in Tilly’s analysis, principally due to its situation. War with England undoubtedly forged a state with a sense of its identity, but thereafter, the military threat was reduced since the English state had other objectives and expense of Scottish conquest did not justify the potential rewards. Considerable local autonomy and frequently weak central authority presents an impression of violence and chaos that was, in fact, more peaceful and less prone to disintegration than many European states. For a century after 1603 Scotland remained nominally independent but with an absentee monarch. Apart from the Commonwealth period, it was largely economic rather than military imperatives that led to Union.

Bibliography

Duffy, C, Siege Warfare. The Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494-1660, London, 1979
Friedrichs, CR, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750, London, 1995
Goodare,J. State and Society in Early Modern Scotland, Oxford, 1999
Goodare,J. & Lynch, M. The Reign of James VI, East Linton, 2000
Lythe, S.G.E. The economy of Scotland in its European setting, 1550-1625, Edinburgh, 1960
Nicholson, R, Scotland the Later Middle Ages, Edinburgh, 1974
Rait, RS, The Scottish Parliament before the Union of the Crowns, Glasgow, 1901
Stewart, J, The Settlements of Western Perthshire, Edinburgh, 1990
Tallet, F. War and Society in Early Modern Europe 1495-1715, London, 1992
Thomson, JM, The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, Vol IV, 1580-1593, Edinburgh, 1984
Tilly, Charles, Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1990, Oxford, 1990
Tilly, C & Blockmans, WP (Eds) Cities & the Rise of States in Europe, AD1000-1800, Oxford, 1994

[6] Tilly, C & Blockmans,W (Eds) Cities & the Rise of States in Europe, AD1000-1800, Oxford, 1994,p28. Italy provides a significant, eloquent example of the difficulties encountered by state formation in the midst of numerous and flourishing urban centres. A unitary Italian state only formed in the latter half of the 19th century … the roots of a strong municipal tradition dating back to the Middle Ages held back the forces tending towards territorial unification. Most notably … at precisely the time when the great western monarchies were consolidating the political system of central and northern Italy was characterised by the city-states great fragmentation and spirit of autonomy.

[7]
Tilly, C & Blockmans,W (Eds) Cities & the Rise of States in Europe, AD1000-1800, Oxford, 1994,p197. One of the main characteristics of the provinces in the northwestern Low Countries was the high level of urbanisation. In 1514, more than half of Holland’s population lived in cities. In the eastern part of the Low Countries and to the south, towns had been established much earlier, stimulated by the Hanseatic and Mediterranean trade.

[8] Lythe, S.G.E. The economy of Scotland in its European setting, 1550-1625, 1960, Edinburgh, p80

[32] Stewart, J, The Settlements of Western Perthshire, Edinburgh, 1990, p51. Tullibardine was appointed Master of the household of James VI. The King’s favour was increased by Tullibardine’s role in the rescue of the King from the Earl of Gowrie.